Mill's
work, there is scarcely more than a glance at this aspect of the
question. The liberty which the author investigates and commends by the
most unanswerable arguments, is not that which is embodied in political
institutions, so much as that which results from the liberal and
enlightened spirit pervading and controlling the social organization. It
is not the power to choose representatives and to make laws, but it is
rather the privilege, in all proper cases, of being a law to one's self,
and of representing in one's own individuality the peculiar ideas and
capacities which each one is best fitted to unfold and develop for his
own good without injury to society. Political tyranny, at this day, is
by no means the chief danger to which men are anywhere exposed; and that
subject has been so thoroughly understood in modern times, that books
are hardly required now to be written upon it. It is social
despotism--the tyranny of custom and opinion--which chiefly enlists the
intellect of our philosophical and interesting author, though he does
not fail to lay down the true limits of the legislative authority as
well. He is thoroughly versed in the history of 'the struggle between
liberty and authority,' which he says 'is the most conspicuous feature
in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar,
particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England. But in old times this
contest was between subjects, or some classes of subjects, and the
government.
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